Records and Roots: George Jones proved he was most promising in country music

George Jones sang like Michael Jordan played basketball. Jordan flew; Jones slammed home more than 60 years of country music bedrocks.Like a baby copperhead, Jones' bite was incredibly powerful from his youth. Consequently, 68 years ago, Billboard magazine named George Jones its Most Promising New Country Vocalist on Jan. 1, 1956.George Jones, new? Funny thing, but even when young, he sounds considerably more seasoned than his years would indicate.Starday Records co-owner Pappy Daily heard that, too. Daily signed Jones to the label in 1953. His first of three Starday singles, "No Money in This Deal," followed in 1954. None rippled on the radio or otherwise.Until "Why Baby Why." Recorded on Aug. 27, 1955, at Gold Star Studios in Houston, Texas, Jones' original version embodies a slightly slower tempo than most of the song's generations of covers. Later on, he sped it up, too.As with many, if not most, of the young country singers of the era, Hank Williams deeply influenced Jones. You can hear it in Jones' phrasing and in the music on "Why Baby Why." It's most apparent in the form of Herb Remington's Don Helms-like steel guitar playing on the song.Hit right off the presses, that was George Jones' "Why Baby Why."Starday released "Why Baby Why" on Sept. 17, 1955. Ironically, the day would have been Hank Williams' 32nd birthday. The single had two renditions — a longer, unedited one and a shorter version (by about 30 seconds)."Why Baby Why" debuted on Billboard on Oct. 29, 1955. It flooded jukeboxes and car radios throughout the winter of 1955 and '56, and the song eventually peaked at No. 4.A Mike Tyson buzzsaw, Jones came out swinging.When young, Jones sang like an old soul. For ample evidence, spin the painful beauty of "Just One More," which Jones recorded in 1956 at the tender age of 25. From his voice alone, one can see the liquor in the bottle, the pain in his soul and the art that's painted in two minutes' time."Just One More" backed up Billboard's faith in naming Jones its Most Promising New Country Vocalist in 1956. A lifetime of convincingly aching and gorgeous music came thereafter. On such records as 1960's "The Window Up Above" as well as his 1961 emotively poignant interpretation of Willie Nelson's "Family Bible," a lifeline clings to Jones' voice. Well, it sounds like it, anyway.Jones' music spoke to those that former President Richard Nixon referred to as the silent majority. Hank Williams commented more than once that the secret of his success was that his songs said what his fans thought about and wanted to say but didn't know how.That's George Jones, country singer for humanity.Even 60-plus years later, we can still ache when Jones sings 1962's "A Girl I Used to Know." It was justifiably a hit, as was 1962's "She Thinks I Still Care." But they were more than numbers on a chart. A silent and seemingly eternal yearning marks "A Girl I Used to Know." Now, haven't most, if not all, of us felt similar pangs of the heart? Jones communicates that.The same holds true for "She Thinks I Still Care." Try as he might, he simply cannot let go of a loved one who got away — though he pretends through much of the song as if he had. By song's end, Jones' tear-soaked baritone cracks with the line "just because I saw her, then went all to pieces, she thinks I still care."Skip all the way to 1999. With his song "Choices," Jones revealed that, regardless of his advancing years, he could still move millions. Jones' last top 40 country single as a solo artist was one of his whopping 143 top 40 singles. But those are numbers.As when Tony Bennett emoted beautifully well into his 90s, with "Choices," Jones reminded people that the master had not lost his brushstrokes."I was tempted," Jones sings in "Choices." He sets us up. We know it's coming, an acknowledgement to the devil in the bottle that haunted him for most of his life. And he delivers."By an early age, I found I liked drinkin'," Jones sings.But then, as when Jacob Marley's ghost drops the hammer on Ebenezer Scrooge, Jones wails, "Oh, and I never turned it down."Untold lives chose and still choose to drop a needle into the treasures left us by George Jones. There's no secret as to why. The voice was that of country music's Picasso. The songs depicted life's roller-coaster whirls and twirls, roundabouts and turnabouts in an unvarnished fashion.Most promising? Indeed.